Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printer, and to an expendable supply for a printer.
Background Arts
An inkjet printer is generally provided with replaceable ink cartridges which contain inks by color. Inks are supplied from the ink cartridges to inkjet heads, and then ejected onto a print sheet from nozzles of the inkjet heads to form images, texts or the like on the print sheet.
For an expendable supply such as an ink cartridge, a validity date (usable period) is generally set as a limit date of a quality assurance period. Therefore, a general inkjet printer calculates a validity date (usable limit) of an ink cartridge based on its production date stored in the ink cartridge and a period while the ink cartridge is used, and shows a warning, if the calculated validity date of the currently-used ink cartridge is expired.
Japanese Granted Patent No. 3951996 (Patent Document 1) discloses an image forming apparatus. The apparatus shows a warning for prompting a replacement of an expendable supply on its display, if an activation of a power supply of the apparatus (the apparatus is powered on) or a cancellation of its energy-saving mode (the apparatus is resumed from its energy-saving mode) is detected after it is detected that the expendable supply is almost expired and before it is detected that the expendable supply had been expired.